In recent years, many vehicles are provided with a navigation apparatus that provides travel guidance for the vehicle to allow a driver to easily reach a desired destination location. The navigation apparatus is a device that can detect the current position of the vehicle using a GPS receiver or the like and acquire map data corresponding to the current position from a storage medium such as a DVD-ROM or an HDD or through a network to display the map data on a liquid crystal monitor. Furthermore, such a navigation apparatus is provided with a route search function for searching for a recommended route from the vehicle position to a desired destination location when the destination location is input, and adapted to set the recommended route found in the search as a route for guidance, display the route for guidance on a display screen, and provide audio guidance in the case where the vehicle approaches an intersection or the like in order to reliably guide a user to the desired destination location. In recent years, in addition, some cellular phones, smartphones, tablet terminals, personal computers, and so forth also have functions that are similar to those of the navigation apparatus described above.
In recent years, in addition, there has been proposed, as a travel mode of a vehicle, travel through automated drive control in which the vehicle travels automatically along a route set in advance with no reliance on a drive operation by a user, besides manual travel in which the vehicle travels on the basis of a drive operation by the user. In the automated drive control, for example, the current position of the vehicle, the lane in which the vehicle travels, and the positions of other vehicles around the vehicle are detected at all times, and vehicle control for a steering unit, a drive source, a brake unit, and so forth is performed automatically such that the vehicle travels along the route set in advance. Although travel through the automated drive control is advantageous in that a burden related to drive on the user can be reduced, travel through the automated drive control may be difficult in some situations, depending on the road conditions and the surrounding environment. Examples of such situations include a situation where a right or left turn is to be made at an intersection, a situation where it is necessary to make a lane change or a lane merge in a short section, and a situation in a bad weather. In such situations, it is necessary to suspend travel through the automated drive control and commence manual drive.
In the case where travel through the automated drive control is to be suspended, it is necessary for the user to travel through the manual drive after travel through the automated drive control is suspended, and thus it is desired to appropriately make a changeover from the automated drive control to the manual drive. Thus, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 9-161196 (JP 9-161196 A), for example, proposes a technique of providing guidance on a changeover from automated drive control to manual drive in consideration of the time required for the changeover in the case where a vehicle is traveling through the automated drive control on a highway on which travel through the automated drive control is permitted and the vehicle has approached an end point (IC) of the highway where it is necessary to make a changeover to the manual drive.